See Hutcheson on Beauty; Gerard and Burke on Taste; Lord Kaims, Knight, Alison, &c.

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Aristotle defines poetic art in general to be a habit conducted by reason to the production of a true effect2; and wherever truth is concerned, reason is concerned; particularly where certain causes, whatever they may be, are employed to produce certain effects, and where certain means are adapted to certain ends. Thus there is no part of learning in which reason and judgment have more various employment, or in which they perform a more difficult and delicate task, than in their application to the imitative arts.

When effects are produced upon the internal feeling by objects or events, as they

3 Έξις μετὰ λόγε ἀληθῆς ποιητική. ἔτι δὲ τέχνη πᾶσα περὶ γένεσιν, καὶ τὸ τεχνάζειν, καὶ θεωρεῖν, ὅπως ἂν γένηταί τι τῶν ἐνδεχομένων καὶ εἶναι, καὶ μὴ εἶναι· καὶ ὧν ἡ ἀρχὴ ἐν τῷ ποιῦντι, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐν τῷ ποιεμένῳ. ἔτε γὰρ τῶν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ὄντων, ἢ γινομένων, ἡ τέχνη ἐςὶν, ἔτε τῶν κατὰ φύσιν· ἐν αὐτοῖς γὰρ ἔχεσι ταῦτα τὴν ἀρχήν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ποίησις καὶ πρᾶξις ἕτερον, ἀνάγκη τὴν τέχνην ποιήσεως, ἀλλ ̓ ἐ πράξεως εἶναι ἡ μὲν ἦν τέχνη, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, ἕξις τις μετὰ λόγε ἀληθῆς ποιητική ἐσιν· ἡ δ' ἀτεχνία τεναντίον μετὰ λόγω ψευδῆς ποιητικὴ ἕξις, περὶ τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον ἄλλως ἔχειν.—Ethic. Nicom. lib. vi. cap. 4.

occur in the ordinary course of nature, which is the foundation of poetic imitation, we may perhaps be either too deeply interested in them, or too much involved in their contemplation to speculate on their causes. Yet there are causes, and these rational and intelligent, which are uniform and consistent in their operation, as long as the present system of nature and constitution of the human mind continue permanent. In consequence of this inattention, and other concurrent circumstances, their frequency, their variety, and complexity, and above all their familiarity—they are not perhaps so distinctly to be ascertained, or so easily generalized, as those which are productive of truth in the province of the will or intellect. They have however in nature a permanent existence, and are more or less recognised and responded to by all, though in a higher degree by sensitive and ingenious minds. The poet or artist remarks these causes as they affect his own feelings, and as he observes their operation on others; and thus from sentiment and observation, he is supplied with a large and various stock of poetical

ideas3. These are the secondary principles of From this valuable treasury,

the poetic art. he unconsciously draws the resources of his genius, to be employed in all the different acts of imitation. This operation, however logical it may appear, he does in fact, though it is generally performed by the silent and almost insensible operation of his mind, without the phlegmatic process of a formal logic,-just as many can reason well without knowing the process of reasoning.

But, however insensibly performed, the reasoning may be clearly analyzed; and from thence the truth produced may be critically ascertained.

The truth both of facts and history results

3 Γίγνεται δ ̓ ἐκ τῆς μνήμης ἐμπειρία τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. αἱ γὰρ πολλαὶ μνῆμαι τῷ αὐτῷ πράγματος, μιᾶς ἐμπειρίας δύναμιν ἀποτελῶσι καὶ δοκεῖ σχεδὸν ἐπισήμῃ καὶ τέχνῃ ὅμοιον εἶναι ἡ ἐμπειρία. ἀποβαίνει δ ̓ ἐπισήμη καὶ τέχνη διὰ τῆς ἐμπειρίας τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἐμπειρία τέχνην ἐποίησεν, ὡς φησι Πῶλος, ὀρθῶς λέγων· ἡ δ ̓ ἀπειρία, τύχην. γίνεται δὲ τέχνη, ὅταν ἐκ πολλῶν τῆς ἐμπειρίας ἐννοημάτων καθόλου μία γένηται περὶ τὸν Twν óμоiwr iñón.-Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 1.

See Lowth's Prælect. Academ. v. Omnis natura, immensa hæc rerum universitas, humanæ mentis contemplationi offertur atque objicitur, suppeditatque infinitam notionum varietatem, confusam quandam materiam atque sylvam; imagines, veluti quædam poetica suppellex, colliguntur, &c.

upon

the

from the apprehension or investigation of particulars, independently of their causes; whereas that of poetry springs from the application of general or universal causes. The first act of reasoning is therefore, from a number of particulars, by collateral judgments of effects produced by them internal feeling, to collect these general causes; and the second, to apply them by the different modes of imitation, in order to produce the poetic effect. Hence poetry is said by Aristotle to be more philosophical than history. Experience forms the foundation, induction is the first act, and a judicious application of generals is the second. And if such general causes of poetic genius be originally well constituted, and afterwards well applied, the poetic truth will display itself in the effect, by a proportionable influence on our sensibility.

Thus poetry stands high in the eye of philosophy. It is founded in abstraction,

5 Η μὲν ἐμπειρία τῶν καθέκατά ἐτι γνῶσις, ἡ δὲ τέχνη τῶν Kaóλov.-Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 1.

6 Διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱτορίας ἐτίν. Ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλε, ἡ δ ̓ ἱτορία τὰ kad čkasov λéyel.-Ibid De Poet. cap. 9.

which is the sublimest operation of the mind, by which its ideas are not only generalized, but corrected and improved by an act of intellect, and rendered more perfect and complete than the archetypes themselves. These are the materials with which the imagination works, and which it moulds into forms of beauty superior to any which appear on the face of nature. And hence it is the imitative arts derive that excellence and superiority in which they glory. As by this power of abstraction the mathematician conceives the idea of a perfect circle or a perfect sphere, and the moralist that of a faultless character, which in nature have no external existence; thus from archetypes which exist in nature, the imitative artist derives ideas so correct and sublime, that they become transcendent, that is, above, though not contrary to natural productions".

Particulars and individuals, with all their deformities and imperfections are indeed often applied by imitation to the production of poetical effect; but to arrive at the summit

7 See Bacon. De Augm. Scient. lib. ii. cap. 13.